Trapping for survival

reply to post by SUICIDEHK45


Are you brand spanking new to this?

Like new enough you have not put your trapps in a 5 gallon bucket of salty water and rusted them right good, then soaked them in a fish oil to stop the rust at desired color.

All thats left after that is study the animal you wanna catch...

For example a coyote...I use snare "icatch them live" so they can be sold to a hunting dog trainer.... find a scoot hole where they run thru a fence and at the last second scoot under the barb wire.....dog on a cabel...

leg traps.....I find hard to use walking up on a wounded animal...sorry..

conibears...I use alot...90% of my fur bearing comes from these..

Learning an animals actions and routines is all I can tell ya, that and surgical gloves and scent "human scent is really tough....90% of new trappers, never beat that part and give up, very crutial part...!

Thats where the traps soaked in fish oil also help, and of course you need to run them down the creek, my friend rides a burrow to trap I canoe/kayak....his way is more fun...but both work well I run about 5-8 miles of traps, down the river 1/8 -1/4 mile apart at dusk and return at sunrise to refloat the same route.....u2u me if you want or I'll try to put a much better version together for everyone....books are good....last one I checked out was from the middle school library.....to my suprise..


ETA...don't get the immpression ...that I think I'm great or the best....but I would be willing to give more details of how I have been doing this for the last 10 years or so...I hope to learn something too.....already have....

[edit on 25-8-2010 by Doc Holiday]

There was a skunk in the Lil Grizz coon cuff the other night when I checked my traps. It had sprayed and had died from the stress of being trapped. It was nasty, but I was able to get it skinned and keep the smell off of me for the most part.

I also had a coyote or fox hit on two of my "dirt hole" sets two nights in a row. Unfortunately for me, the pan tension was way too tight and the traps weren't set off. The dirt was moved and the bait was gone. I reset the two dirt hole sets and put a third one out there, so hopefully in the morning there will be something trapped in one of them.

So far I haven't had any luck since I trapped the skunk. I've been really busy so I haven't had much time to set a lot of traps. I have only been keeping the coon cuffs set up and with the start of corn harvest, I'm sure all the raccoons in the area are getting their fill of food.

reply to post by SUICIDEHK45


There's a book you might be interested in. Fiction about a young man who traps for a winter. It is called 'Starbuck Valley Winter' and is a neat book. Pick it up if you see it.

So I've been really busy with work lately, but last night I decided to put out a couple of "coon cuffs" I checked the two traps on the way home tonight and the first trap was empty. I set both traps where many raccoon have been spotted by the owners of the land I'm trapping. There were also many signs of raccoon in the area. Upon checking the second trap I saw I had trapped a skunk...AGAIN.

So far I have trapped two skunks and only one raccoon. The first skunk I trapped, I got the balls up to skin as a trophy. The skunk that was in my trap tonight, I didn't keep. I just threw it away. In a survival situation I probably would have kept it but right now with my time constraints I just don't have the time to skin a STINKY skunk.